Board of Park Commissioners

Board of Park Commissioners Retreat Meeting Minutes Friday, March 23, 2018 2:00- 6:00 P.M. Botanica 701 N Amidon WICHITA Conference Room Wichita, Kansas 67203 Members Present: Tori Deatherage, Lawanda DeShazer, Eddie Fahnestock, Hoyt Hillman, Troy Palmer, Bill Ramsey, Ty Tabing, City Staff: Troy Houtman (Director, Park & Recreation), Penny Garding (Clerk), David McGuire; Larry Hoetmer Item Description . Call to Order Troy Palmer, President, called the meeting to order at approximately 2:07 p.m. 1 Review Golf Situation - pros & cons Houtman stated couple meetings we ago talked about the concerns of our golf courses and that in its current status it is not going to be sustainable. We are actually losing money on a very drastic pace. Particularly with the way the weather hits us, always at the wrong time. The way 2018 has started is not looking good either. Prior to Auburn Hills we had (4) four golf courses and doing more rounds than we are now with a fifth golf course. We have a lot more holes than we have golfers. We met with Councilmember Clendenin and talked about what our approach could be. We set down with the City Manager and staff and developed this project charter. This is staff driven with staff resources on city data on information. It has nothing to do with the public or getting community engagement. We decided to not pay for consultants. We have had several members of the Golf Advisory Committee talk to the City Manager and the Mayor saying they want to be on this committee. It is frustrating when people do these things and we don't know about it, when staff is working on making this happen. We are trying to analyze problem and get a good grasp of it and explain what it is without pointing at any one course in particular. In general, what is it and what would be the solutions as far as financially what are some of the things we are doing. The second page of the handout shows the project approach. At the end is highlighted citizen and customer engagement. We have already been working on the data analysis and root cause, and should have that completed next week. At the end we will have a draft recommendation report, around June 15. When citizens go and meet with council members or City Manager it slows the process because then he has to explain to them what staff is doing. We will share the report with the Golf Advisory Committee and the Park Board. Palmer asked how you stop the citizens from going to them. Houtman responded they informed them at the Golf Advisory Committee meeting that staff is working on this. They still went ahead on their own. Palmer asked then the Golf Advisory Committee people went on their own? Houtman responded yes. Palmer added you said 'citizens,' he was thinking 'golfers' in the community decided to go, how you stop that? Palmer stated this in infancy stages then. Houtman responded we are half way done. We had to do research, pull data from each course, then.analyze and compare it to best practices and other cities. Palmer added with the state ofthe city that was reported at the last board meeting and the decline of funds in the future, what is the time table. Not assuming that we are closing a golf course, what is your time frame? End of 2018? Houtman responded every month we wait we are losing_$50-60,000. Palmer asked how do we continue to move forward. Houtman responded once we get the analysis complete and share that with the City Manage & Councilmember Clendenin, what are some of the viable options we would be looking at. Hopefully we can put an implementation plan. Houtman restated the monthly loss as $10- 15,000. Deshazer joined meeting at 2:14 Houtman . stated he has to go through it very systematically to answer all the questions. The problem and solution need to be presented in a convincing fashion, not just for the City Manager, but for the community as well as Councilme·mber Clendenin and the Golf Advisory Com.mittee as well. Ramsey inquired who the Golf Advisory Committee reports to. Ho.utman responded this board. Ramsey added how they are appointed to that committee. Houtman responded the board appoints them. Palmer added if you have someone you want to appoint; you can. Ramsey stated his point is that the Golf Advisory Committee didn't just bypass Houtman, they also bypassed the organization they report to. Palmer added that is why he was asking who·went around. If it was the Golf Advisory Committee that is not the right way to do it. Hillman added at the last Golf Advisory Committee meeting he attended, Ferris volunteered to be a representative on that committee if they would allow one. Hillman was invited by Councilmember Clendenin to meet with the City Manager. Hillman took the invitation. Palmer added he wanted to make sure if it was community people doing, how are you going to stop them. If it is our own people, then yes, that is probably not the best way. Houtman added it has.been several people from the committee. Ramsey added it would behoove us to remind them they report to this board. Hillman agreed. Tabing asked Houtman, you will come back with recommendations and the board will weigh in at that point. Houtman responded yes, the report will include information on how we compare to other communities. What is the true cause and biggest culprit ofus being inefficient and us loosing dollars? Where are we lacking performance? How can we changes that performance without dipping into General Fund dollars? But, also, what are some of the options that we can look at that would satisfy changing the model. The model is not sustainable. Fahnestock stated he would be interested in seeingwhat is presented. The younger generation go to theTallgrass's and Willobend's of the world. Millennials don't do what is logical, they do what is cool. And, joining private clubs is cool, whether they can afford it or not. We will compete with t:hat. Some golf courses are doing alright, three of them are in the black and two are losing us money. We need to take a look at what is presented in June and go from there. Palmer added knowingthat millennials are going to go more privatized just solidifies this conversation. We don't want to keep open courses for fun if we are not going to get the younger generation. We can't close them all, we have to have them.  Deatherage stated there are golfers out there, but how do we convince them to come to our courses as compared to going to Tal grass or others. Houtman responded we pulled a lot of data and the golfing community is shrinking. Some fo the die-hard golfers are dying off. There are .not as many being introduced to the game at a younger age or even at the middle. age. The cost of operating golf courses has increased. It is not just here, but a trend across the country. We are doing all the things we possibly can by introducing the partnership with First Tee at MacDonald. Mr. Hendricks has tried new marketing schemes and new pricing schemes. We got new golf carts. There isjust a lot of things we've been doing, it is not stopping the bleeding. It is not sustainable. Palmer added the Golf Department and the Golf Advisory Committee has tried everything. You can't change trends. Hillman added we've adjusted prices, tried to bring in more revenue and balance things, but we are losing money. Palmer added that Top Golf type thing, people don't have to move· around, they just stand in their luxury suite and hit some golf balls. Houtman added that might actually help the golf courses. You might want to do that sometimes, but you still want to go out and play golf. i-le does not see it as a huge competitor. Palmer added it keeps golf relevant. People are talking about, people that aren't going out golfing, are going out and hitting golf balls. 2 Long Term Planning- CIP Projects Houtman shared the CIP project list. In 2018 we are looking at changing and developing some things. On the sheet the things in red are things we what want to change. All of them have changed increasing the numbers or spreading it out over years. • Aquatics Master Plan -$22M - in 2019 that number is red because we.added $4M to the. overall amount. That $4M is in 2023. That $4M is going into District I and there needs to be a decision soon regarding where it goes. • Athletic courts -We had $250,000 every.other year: Knowing we are spending a lot of time and money replacing and repairing, we made a proposal to add $100,000 on the odd year and $250,000 on the even year. • Central & Bristol Park -That is going to depend on if there is a police station. We won't do anything until that project moves forward. • Chapin -no changes • Crystal Prairie Lake Park -no changes • Facility improvements -we are at $400,000 every year. We changed it to $600,000 in 2020-2023 and then increase to $700,000 in 2024-2026. We added up of all infrastructure arid we have close to $125M land assets and another $50° 60M in building assets. That is almost $200M. On an annual basis we have $400,000 to maintain and upgrade park assets. • Irrigation - we didn't touch that because every other year we are adding in dollars for irrigation and sometimes we wait three years and combine those. We did that this past year. • Linwood - $300,000 putting in this year. We are almost done with that project. Hillman asked what the project is. Houtman responded we put in a new restroom, lighting and sidewalk work. • Hillman inquired about Item #2, the Aquatics Master Plan, asking if the pool there has been eliminated in the lorig term plan. Palmer, not necessarily, there is $4M in the Aquatics Master Plan for a District I pool. Hillman clarified on the listing says "all" and he is not aware of any pools planned for District Ill. Houtman  responded the Aquatics Master Plan went to the Board and you guys supported it, we took it to Council and they voted on it. The plan has not changed. Hillman responded the word "all" confused him. Houtman clarified "all" the projects within the Aquatics Master Plan, whether it is splash pads, pool renovations or new pool. Ramsey added it is just in 2019 they got the additional $4M, that is all. DeShaZer inquired who is going to decide where the pool is going to go. Houtman responded Council will decide. CouncilmemberJohnson needs to get his district support and their suggestions and recommendations so it goes in front ofcouncil. Houtman added any time his spends·more than $50,000 he has to take it.to Council and they need to approve it. It is important that.District I decides what they want to do so when they go to Council and they are all there and say we stand behind Councilmember Johnson's recommendation and it should be at this location. That is what CouncilmemberJohnson is working on. We can't influence people, all we can do is share the facts, the pros and cons. Deshazer asked what the pros at Boys & Girls Club are. Houtman responded some folks in the community thought it might be a good idea, a place for people to go. There would be less overhead for the City with the Boys & Girls club operating it. They would have more hours available and make it more accessible. Deshazer asked if they have the budget for that. Houtman responded he did not know. That is probably why it is low on the pros and high on the cons because.there would be a lot of infrastructure costs. The pool dollarswon't go as far because you have to bring in utilities. Edgemoor or McAdams already has the infrastructure. The bath house and utilities are already there. The locations are already established where people know there are pools there. It comes down to the question of which one of those two is the right location. There are pros and cons to both. One is in a neighborhood and the o_ther one doesn't have as many homes surrounding it. McAdams. is historic and a lot of people think that is important. DeShazer asked if there is a deadline CouncilmemberJohnson needs to meet. Houtman responded what we are doing now is we went out and got qualifications for a designer/consultant. We looked at six (6) and bring back.three (3) next Friday for presentations. We will select a.designer/consultant and from that we will need to start putting plans on paper. We want to have plans in place by 2019 so we can start pulling them off the shelf to start new projects. • McAdams Fields - $1.4M was allocated and we spent $500,000 a year and a half ago and $500,000 last year. We will spend the last $400,000.thifyear. They are putting in new backstops as well as dugouts and other improvements, including batting cages. Deshazer inquired about the bathroom. Houtman responded it should be done in the next two or three. weeks, as they un°winterize them. • Naftzger Park -$500,000 set aside from General Fund. • Planeview -money going in throughoutthe years to make upgrades. $3.9M. • Playgrounds - Every year we spend about $400,000 on playground upgrades and repairs or new equipment. We have 85 playgrounds. New location at Fabrique probably by end of summer. Palmer inquired where thatis. Houtman responded itis in Councilmember Clendenin's district. He is using $100,000 from his Hyatt money. It is a watershed property that we have done an MOU with the Watershed. Fabrique will bring us to 86, Pawnee Prairie Park will be 87. Hoetmer stated we picked a vendor and are working on a design now. • Pracht Wetlands - $500,000 and $1M from the Hyatt funds. We selected a contractor and hope to finalize work and scope of the contract and get going. Hoetmer added it should go to Council in.early April for Hutton Construction. Palmer asked if that.is totally picked and we have a contract. Hoetmer responded that is who the committee recommended. • Walking paths-$250,000 every other year, This helps us put in sidewalks and walking paths throughout the parks. We changed from $250,000 every other year and then on the even years, starting in 2020 to $350,000. • Watson Park - This is part of the OJWatson Park Master Plan. Every year there are several dollars going in for upgrades. This year we are.doing irrigation, we are capturing gray water from other side of river; they will be starting that work next week. • Tennis Center -there are some issues with the tennis courts. The courts are more than just a slab of concrete. There is cable tension under them. They are cracking and starting to failing. Since this is revenue generating we want to get $300,000 year. That is about $100,000 per tennis court and there are 12 courts. The $300,000 does three (3) courts so doing it for four (4) years would get to $1.2M. Palmer stated the $1.7M in athletic courts is not part of the tennis courts. Houtman responded it could be for the tennis courts in the parks, but not for the Tennis Center. McGuire.added there are about 85 courts across the city in the parks. Some of them need to be removed so they might not be replaced. Houtman added there are other uses for those areas. We have turned some of them into futsal courts. They could be for a dog run. • Dog parks - We get a lot of requests for adding dog parks. Don't want to spend all of the money in 2018-2022. We wanted to earmark forthe future so we put $100,000 per year for the next five (5) years starting in 2023. • Harrison Park - We. have been doing some upgrades already. It is an active and well used park. Working with Together Wichita we have.reviewed plans they have got services donated and they are working on fundraising to get the dollars they need. That is about $200,000, which would be fencing, the dog amenities, waterline, a wash rack. Our commitment to this is to do the parking lot. We have $100,000 from Hyatt funds to pay for th.at. We are working with the City Manager, Finance and Public Works to get another. $125,000. The head of the committee has done:a lot of research on this. Her husband works for Hutton and she is trying to get some of the construction labor donated, not just from Hutton but from other organizations in the city. A lot of the things we do are leveraged with grants, donations and sponsorships. • Land Acquisition - we had no money for this. We asked for $350,000 every odd year for the next 10 years. We found situations where, if we would have had some money, we could have purchased a piece of property adjacent to a park, If a developer is working on a project and wants to donate property to us, this could help us develop it or add on to it. Not having this resource has limited us and made us rely strictly on donations. • Botanica has asked for money. Prior to the economic down turn, there was dollars in the capital improvement schedule for Botanica. Some of what they want is to build a parking lot, work on the carousel and a great lawn. Palmer added Marty Miller has done a fantastic job and raised capital like none other.  Houtman added if these dollars are availablethey would be leveraged with all the other fund raising activities that he is doing, making it more convincing. Houtman stated that gives us almost $62M over the next 10 years. It·sounds like a lot, but there are still a lot of projects that just don't happen. Ramsey inquired about Pawnee Prairie Park and if all of it is out of 2017. Houtman responded it is 2018 but it is all Hyatt funds. Those are not capital dollars. Ramsey stated.he thought we were $250,000 over the million. Houtman responded that is the estimated amount if we want to get everything in. If we want everything in and we spend our $1M, we have to go out and find sponsorships or donations. We are doing pretty well, we have about 25% done. We have done improvements on the sidewalk, they are working on the signage and the trail. Tabing asked if there is a person on staff that does sponsorship and fundraising. Houtman responded tit is about 25% of.Stacey Hamm's role. She was successful just today getting $5,000 from Wichita Federal Credit Union for the SayYES program. That will defray part of the $30,000 cost from last year. Palmer asked if the free swimming was at the YMCA. Houtman responded there was one pass that went to the YMCA, because of the closure of McAdams pool, not part of SayYES. But, they can take the bus and go swimming at any YMCA. Palmer responded he·remembered last year doing the voucher to the YMCA. When there is a cost to it, why do we send them to the Y? Houtman responded it is not just Park1s cost, the majority of the cost was to Transit in lost revenue, not n necessarily in overhead costs. There were about $1,000_ in Library fines forgiven. We admitted them to the swimming pools and had about a $5,000 revenue loss. Deatherage asked about participation. Houtman responded we had about 1,100. Palmer inquired if we knew start and stop locations on those riders. Palmer added the pool wasn't part of the SayYES program. Houtman responded the pool was but the Y was not, they got one voucher to the Y. It had nothing to do with the SayYES program. We gave out vouchers because we closed McAdams Pool. When we close a pool that neighborhood will get a certain amount of vouchers to go to the Y. Palmer asked how many of those vouchers were use? Houtman responded we handed out,998 of 1,000. About450 of those were used. We had to pay the Y $5 for each voucher (valued at $10 each). Palmer asked if that was just in the area around McAdams that got those vouchers. Houtman responded that is correct. DeShazer asked why we did not direct them to. a City pool. Houtman responded we did that too, they had the option. This year we are not closing any pools, but next year when we close another pool, that neighborhood will 1,000 vouchers to go to the Y. Deshazer asked if there. was a cost to the Y too. Houtman responded yes, they pay the other half, it is a $10 voucher and they charge us $5. We are splitting the cost. 3 Director's 2017 Overview Houtman stated 2017 was a very good year for department. The one event that was over the top is Open Streets. We have made_ a final decision on the Recreation Superintendent - Reggie Davidson from Round Rock, TX will be starting in May. Palmer added he was a great interview and will be a great partner for the city.  Houtman stated throughout 2017 he appreciated the board's input and staying engaged. Break-2:55 Palmer left the meeting, Ramsey took over leading the discussion. Resume - 3:02 4 Review of 2017 Goals Houtman shared the list of 2017 Goals. We did good on a lot of these things. There are a few things that did not get completed. lA - For two (2) years in a row we have our annual report done, for 2016 and 2017. It showcases all that we are doing. lB - continue build partnerships throughout the year. We are always adding two or three new partners every year. Hillman asked if we can add the Ark River Coalition this year. Houtman responded, yes, we have always included them as a partner. Hillman added we were going to sign an MOU. Houtman responded we just need the MOU. lC- as we update the PROS every year, when there are changes from other parts, depending on if it is the community plan, the downtown plan or one of the other plans we are engaged with, we update the PROS plan every year. When there are items we need implement we bring that to the Park Board - Townsend will bring to the June meeting. 1D-Aquatics Master Plan-done. 1E - Not many opportunities. 2 - There is a lot of interaction with the Golf Advisory Committee. The Wichita Parks Foundation is still taking baby steps and doing greatthings. The Board is always weicome to support them. Ramsey stated he is not aware of when GolfAdvisory Committee is meeting. Garding will send meeting information on Golf Advisory Committee and Wichita Parks Foundatio.n meetings. Tabing asked about the OJ Watson Master Plan meeting. His appointee had a meeting with someone from Park and he was the only one present besides staff. Did everyone else appoint someone and they did not come to the meeting? Ramsey responded his appointee was there and came back raving about it. Tabing asked if these sub groups have good attendance. Houtman responded this is the first time we have re-engaged the OJ Watson committee. We have done others with the.Aquatics Master Plan and those have been successful. This one is more about gaining other partnerships and seeing other likeminded groups and non-profits. 3Al & 2 - Houtman stated this getting more exposure and getting other people involved. 3A3 -We are continuingto have good discussions with YMCA and the school district, but they have been discussions and not a lot of action. It involves more work and time to turn those things into action .. They have a lot of the same budget restrictions and difficulties we do. 3B-We have worked on sponsorship signage. It is a matter of getting sponsorships to pay for those. Hillman added he wished to thank Hoetmer for his assistance with the. historical plaques that have been put up this past year. 4 - We did not do much this year. Hillman stated there are access points that need to be improved, the plaques he mentioned earlier and the Little Ark ordinance to write, and banks, bridges, updates to A Price Woodard Park. Long term planning  suggests we look at all these things since a lot of it is on park land. Houtman stated these should go into the 2018 Plan. 5 A B & C - These are new, added last year. These were all district intense. DeShazer inquired.about partnerships with the school district and did the board know about the partnership with the school and little league academic achievement project. Houtman asked about which one because there are so many. DeShazer responded working with Mickey Lara, all the little league football players, 6th - 8th grade, were identified with USD 259. The ones that are 3.0. or better received awards and goodies. Those that are struggling have been identified a.nd this summer they will provide academic access to the teams that want it. They will practice at the schools and have teachers available to provide tutoring for those that want it, at no cost to the City, but the City was instrumental. Houtman responded Lara went to the presentation. Houtman stated we were successful in_some of the 2017 Board of Park Commissioners go_als. 5 2018 Goals Ramsey stated we should takewhat we have from 2017 and see what to carry across to 2018, specifically the ones we did not accomplish. Fahnestock asked if Houtman felt the 2017 goals were attainable. Did the Board of Park Commissioners set the bar too high, or too low? Houtman responded these goals are not for him or the department but for the Board. Ramsey asked Houtman what he would like to see the Board assist with. Houtman responded it is always great when we have people advocate and work for the endeavors we are working on and support us. A lot of that comes from being educated and knowledgeable about all the things we are doing. We try to send as much information as we can. There are other things we need to do, and we are identifying those. A lot of times it feels likewe are sending so much information that nobody is listening or paying attention. If that is not the case, we can get you more information so you feel like you are abreast of all that is going on. Ramsey responded he reads everything you send and appreciate, especially the ones being sent lately about the different things going on in different cities. I don't think you are sending too much. The more informed we are the better job we can do. Houtman added there are things you can bring to the table as well. We do a Weekend Report for the City Manager. Every Friday we sel"ld the City Manager three or four highlights of what our department is working on. It gets compiled with all the other City departments. You have been great at supporting us in some of our presentations and events. Ramsey asked if that is all you wish from us.. Houtman responded there are things we can strategize on. That would not be a yearlong situation, but when we have different topics like the Aquatics Master Plan. It would be great finding out what is going on in your district. The more we do the more valuable. we become. We want to be indispensable. Tabing asked about the Project Wichita initiative that is getting readyto start, we would be natural advocates encouraging people to think about the future parks and open space and how that impacts quality of life. That is an opportunity for us to be advocates for the cause. Hillman stated Kansas Leadership Center is open for members. Ramsey asked how we put this down as a goal. We have a lot of it here already, continue to advance, a_dvocate for and participate in. Continue developing a relationship with other stakeholders. That is what we are talking about right? Continue to do.that. What goals from 2017 should we pull across for 2018 that we are going to continue. or that we didn't hit and we need to pull over. We can add after we do that. Deatherage asked if it would be easier if we marked off the things that are done and no longer relevant. Ramsey agreed. What do we mark.off on 2017? Hillman stated we could cross off lD, we have the Aquatics Master Plan. Tabing asked if Project Wichita endeavor fall under 1. We are spokespeople for open space and parks .. Ramsey agreed we can add that. Ramsey asked, since this is board stuff, looking at 3Al, how.many of you met with your council member about the budget. Hillman acknowledged he had. Deatherage stated they casually talk but they did not have a formal discussion. Fahnestock has talked with his council member but not about budget. Deshazer stated she didn't talk about budget, but more about projects. Ramsey stated we did not adoptthe revised river ordinances. Houtman responded we have done the Big Arkansas but not the Little Arkansas yet. Ramsey stated on #2 ,it is nice to sustain and support the Golf Advisory Committee and the Wichita Parks Foundation, but we don't say how. Deatherage suggested adding stay in contact.with our appointed member of the Golf Advisory Committee. Ramsey asked who, other than Hillman, knows. who their person is on the Golf Advisory Committee. Ramsey added he knows his but has never talked to him. Tabing does not know who his is. Deatherage added after she joined the board she sent an email to hers but doesn't recall if he responded, but he left shortly after that. Ramsey stated we should add 2A that says we stay in contact and maintain communication with Golf Advisory Committee representative at least once per quarter. Ramsey would like to also add the OJ Watson Park Committee appointee as well and stay in conversation with. Ramsey asked what else can be add.ed or altered. Hillman asked about 3A, is that an internal group promotion or going out and advocating, what is really says we are just telling them,about our budget, which is not what hethinks is really being.said. Houtman responded for his perspective it is talking to different people (council members, influencers within the community, etc.) telling them about the lacking needs we have in the budget. Sharing ideas and getting people involved and educated about the importance of parks and recreation and. what it actually provides. Hillman agrees and we should elevate the importance of the annual park and recreation services. Tabing asked about how the board can serve the department better, is there more homework we should be doing before coming to these meetings? Should there be a more heightened level.of preparedness so the discussions are more informative and helpful. Houtman responded it is however prepared you want to be. You can bring ideas from your district, whether it is physical assets, programming opportunities or groups of individuals or interests within the community that have some ideas. It doesn't have to wait until a meeting, there is always great times to have conversations about things prior to the meeting or even directly after a meeting. McGuire added he leads park maintenance. One of his goals last year was to ask each of you to inspect each of the parks in your district. We have a form you could take and do a detailed inspection of each park in your district. The feedback would go towards our performance measures. Ramsey asked who has been to all the parks in their district. Ramsey would like to see that as a goal for 2018. How do we phrase that? Hoetmer added you might want to have a Mission Statement. He discussed the Park Department mission statement and how it is applied to his projects throughout the park system. He is trying to raise the bar on projects and having a goal to have a world class park system. Hillman added it is all quality of.life issues. Hoetmer added as for elevating the message and advocacy of this group, it is hard when you are a volunteer group. In cities like Oklahoma City, how did they get to their MAPS program? Someone had to lay a foundation or send a message out there and .it grew from there. Houtman stated in the political realm of things, Councilmember Claycomb and he talked about dedicated sales .tax for parks to increase funding for the operations of parks. With health and wellness ideas and aspe�s, one idea that keeps coming up over and over is the restriction of tobacco in parks, particularly regarding cigarette butts and second-hand smoke. There are a lot of park departments across the country taking the lead on that. Here there is a real concern about the infringement of rights. Would that be something thatthis group would want to support or not. There are a lot of different ideas like that regarding the impacts of parks in our community. How political do you want to get? We have relied on an outside group or movementto push those things. Eventually it may come to the park board where you get to review and support one way or the other; These things are just examples, they could be different than that. Really it could be as big or as small as you want. Do you want a goal oran idea that we have "X" amount of park land every year. Do you want a goal that we have "X" amount of dollars dedicated to the budget for certain projects. That is more than just staff developing the strategy for this and executing, but becomes a strategy the board has to put together as well. Deshazer added on the County side, they inspect every property in our district. That is a good idea to inspect every park and put that as a dedicated task. Houtman responded staff does, but it is a different situation when staff goes out, because you interact with the community and have a different perspective. McGuire added you might stop and say I've seen our staff out doing this work. Ramsey added he goes to different parks and talk to other people in the community in the park and see what they think. How do we put this down as a goal? Each board member should visit one park in their district per'month? Deatherage suggested 10 a year. Houtman added some districts have more parks than others. That is where the Mayor's appointee can help? Ramsey stated it is important as a goal and trying to establish what everyone thinks they can commit to. Tabing added the intention being a kind of recon and repo_rt back findings. Ramsey responded McGuire is going to have a.sheet for us, look it over, and also talk to people in the park too. Deatherage asked how detailed is the sheet? McGuire stated there two sheets. There is an inspection that is a drive by inspection or there is a very detailed sheet that is going to take you a while to walk around the park and check everything off. Tabing stated that is the status quo. He feels Houtman is challenging us to look to the future. Do we want more park space, do we want a higher quality park constructed in the future. Ramsey responded he feels we are talking about two different things. One is we are going to make this commitment and have the second part, what Houtman is talking about, that we need to look at that. Tabing,confirmed one is about the current parks and also looking to future. Ramsey state we have to turn"these into goals. Houtman added you don't have to make final decision now. Maybe have a timeframe where you discuss different ideas and thoughts and email them in in the next couple weeks. We did that last year. We brought it all back to the next board meeting, reviewed it.and voted on it. It doesn't have to,be completed today.  Ramsey asked if there are any other goals to .discuss. Houtman added not to think about just parks but programming as well. There may be goals around programming, health and wellness activities, healthier feeding programs, educational programs for more opportunities for kids be tutored or get help with homework. A successful program he worked with in Austin was a homework telephone line. It turned in to a chat line and Skype line where kids could call in and ask questions about homework. Another challenge for us is modernizing our infrastructure. We want to add more ID signage in the park, LED lights, using more smart technology, developing more software for our operations. He keeps trying to find funding for a software system for McGuire and staff that would include an inventory of all the parks and assets. You can come up with a way to systematically do all the maintenance on it. It would show which routes are the best and which ones are the easiest. Some of it is because there are sensors in the restroom or the trash. If the trash isn't full he doesn't need to stop there. Outdoor education with more support and strength behind the program we do at Great Plains Nature Cen.ter. There is a big interest in.BMX_at Emery Park. There was discussion about expanding that to Stryker and having another park there. If there are any trends that happen in your district thatmight be something to think about and consider. Hillman asked if there are any changes in landscaping or tree plans. Houtman asked if he was referring to standards in the parks for those. This is all about levels of service. We are working on ways of categorizing levels of service which includes how much maintenance goes into a certain park regarding vegetation care, etc. Another discussion was about opportunities or expectations and support for more art in the park. It does not have to be just physical art, it can be performing arts as well. McGuire stated an idea might be to have staff write some goals to submit to the board to review. Ramsey added if we submit items to Houtman, what is our timeframe to do that. Houtman responded we can update whatWe have so far and send it out on Monday ·or Tuesday and as we get ideas and submissions we can put them in and send out. The tough thing is we cannot have discussion ov.er email. If you want to have a one-on-one discussion, you can call Houtman any time. Ramsey asked what is the timeframe to submit ideas. Houtman responded if you getthose and record those throughout the month and just prior to the next meeting with the minutes, we can put those·out. Our next meeting is April 9, maybe we discuss in draft form and then finalize May 14. Ramsey inquired if we do that on April 9 when do you need submissions. Houtman responded by April 8. Ramsey stated those would be subrnitted to Houtman and Garding. Ramsey expressed a Thank You to Houtman and staff for the spectacular job they do. Adjourn There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:00 p.m. Troy